Educational documentary on the North's 'on the brink' women's health sector by Derry Woman Catriona Walsh
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
In Catriona’s documentary ‘Calm Down Dear’ she starts the conversation on the women’s health sector by telling her own history and explains how her experience is still ongoing.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe documentary delves into the troubled women's health sector, showing Catriona’s commitment and bravery for her work she exposes health issues.
Importantly Catriona created a platform for the women who have been through the system to express their feelings and voice their concerns.
The Journal spoke with Catriona to find out how it came together, her emotions and motives at the time.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad"So when I was putting the project together it was always something that I thought about for a quite a while, it's one of those things because it's so personal, it is either gonna be a real passion project or something that's going to scare the life out of me, it could have been too much out of my comfort zone,” said Catriona.
She continued: “Because it's about gynaecology and women's health you don't fully know how people will respond to that, you don't know if people are going to want to speak to you.”
Catriona explained that she believes there is a lack of education on the topic of women’s health and that her aim was to educate and start the conversation. She said: “I wanted to get to the root of what was going on and platform it, especially being connected to the story as well.”
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdApproaching the story whilst still being in the process of dealing with her health, Catriona explained how during the filming she was receiving letters regarding her own health, letters asking Catriona to come in for a cervical scan. She said: “I did an interview with a girl, her sister died due to cervical cancer.” Around the time of the interview Catriona was being tested for cervical cancer. “It was overwhelming but I just cared so much about the story it didn't make me want to stop.”
When starting the project Catriona wanted to give women a platform to speak on their issues. She expected to get low numbers but was shocked at the response of how many women wanted to tell their story. She said: “We put out an open call and I thought we would be scraping for one or two. It wasn't hard to get people to talk but it was eye opening how many people wanted to talk."
She continued by saying: “I thought on the day when we did our studio interview they might come back afterwards and ask to be taken out and I was prepared for that. It was an intimate moment, people were talking about the hardest part of their lives. In some cases it can take their life away.”
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdCatriona showed pride in her work believing she achieved her goals. She said: “I feel like I've achieved that but there is more space for it, whenever I finished the documentary it came to 20 minutes but I had hours and hours of footage. It's a conversion that's not closed and it's a conversion that shouldn't be closed either.”
You can watch Catriona’s documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLFmhoucsk
Comment Guidelines
National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.